Google delays its FLoC efforts "to move at a responsible pace"

Google has announced that it is slowing down its FLoC efforts "to move at a responsible pace" as the community doesn't quite seem ready for what Google is offering in order to protect user privacy.

Google announced today that it is delaying its Privacy Sandbox initiative to 2022-23 as the search giant believes it's moving too fast for its own good and needs "to move at a responsible pace". The reason for Google saying this could be the massive backlash it has faced from almost the entire web community over this.

When Google first announced it wouldn't track users individually for providing personalized ads, many were probably delighted. However, it was soon learned that the company was designing a new way to track users, not individually, but rather in cohorts. This new technique is what Google calls 'Federated Learning of Cohorts' (FLoC).

While the search giant probably felt it's a great idea, many probably didn't perceive it the same way and several web-based companies made conscious efforts to block FLoC including the likes of WordPress, GitHub, DuckDuckGo, Brave, and more. To further add to Google's woes, there have also been antitrust investigations into FLoC earlier in the U.S. and very recently in the EU too.

As of today, the company believes there's more work to be done and is planning an initial rollout for its Privacy Sandbox next year for Chrome developers and a final release by 2023. You can read more about it here.